Feven Yoseph has a special relationship with time. As a child, she already asked herself when it all began and how it was going to end, the singer says. Perhaps it was because of the sky over the Ethiopian highlands where Feven Yoseph grew up, a sky that seems so overwhelmingly close, especially at night, that you feel you can touch its silky infinity with your own hands. It is one of these strong sensory impressions from her homeland that has found its way onto the second album of the singer and vocalist, born in Dese in 1990. Gize is the title of the record, which means “time” in Amharic, Feven Yoseph’s mother tongue.

Feven Yoseph and her band from Berlin with Marina Sherstnova on keys, Fritz Bayer on guitar, Felix-Otto Jacobi on bass, Jakob Hegner on drums and trumpeter Marcus Rust achieve an organic combination of styles that draws from the rich heritage of African music as well as from sources of jazz, R&B and the Esperanto of pop. The songs sound ancient and urban, foreign and deeply familiar at the same time. Quite often you find yourself humming along to the Amharic lyrics. Feven Yoseph is doubtlessly following in the footsteps of such great African artists as Miriam Makeba or Angélique Kidjo. One might well describe her – in analogy to Mulatu Astatke, the famous inventor of ethio-jazz – as the originator of a modern ethio-soul.

Six years have passed between Feven Yoseph’s jazzy debut album Chanting Soul and its successor Gize. The patience has paid off. Because the pieces were able to develop like the sweet honey wine Tej, which Feven sings about in the song “Gize Fetay”. “It’s a traditional drink for us that ferments and matures slowly in the dark. The waiting brings out something wonderful, something you can’t get enough of,” explains the singer. The same can be said of the nine uplifting songs on Gize. It’s time for the world to get to know Feven Yoseph!